You know wh-
Nope, let me start over.
Okay. Every now and then, a movie comes along that’s unlike
any other. A movie that makes you question the images your brain is producing
as they flash across the screen. A film that makes you ask aloud, “How did you
get here?” Movies like The Book of Henry
or Unforgettable or King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Movies
that defy all notion of craftsmanship and business sense. One that five years
from now, you’ll chuckle as you recall, ‘Oh, yeah, they made that shit!’
Anyway, we are Venom.
Venom is a movie
so paper-thin, I can’t even make fun of Justice
League anymore. I mean, I can but
I’d feel bad about it. At least with Justice
League they were attempting to make an actual movie. Venom is not, a “movie” so much as it is a demo reel. An actual
movie is like a three-course meal with each Act serving as equally important
parts to the viewers nutrition. Here, the First Act is an appetizer, the Second
Act is the entrée, and the Third Act and epilogue is the dessert that the
hostess throws at you on the way out the door because it’s ten minutes to
closing time, you rat bastard!
The opening stanza is average if non-offensive as we are introduced
to our main character Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), an investigative journalist and
his lawyer girlfriend Annie Weying (Michelle Williams). Eddie is given an
assignment to interview inventor/entrepreneur Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), but
when he digs up info on the Life Foundation’s shady practices, he overplays his
hand and gets both him and Annie canned from their respective jobs.
Now unemployed, Eddie gets hired by Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) to investigate
her boss and blow the whistle on his dangerous human experiments. Before he
can, he comes into contact with the symbiote parasite and begins his
transformation into the entity known as Venom. And here is the point that we
part ways with anything resembling good sense.
First off, Venom doesn’t come into the movie until over
halfway. We see his goop, we hear his voice, but we don’t see Venom proper in all
his glory until the tail-end of the second act. This is extra egregious when
you realize that the film clocks in at a shade under 95 minutes. The First Act
is done before you find your seat. The Second Act has a solid chase sequence
and gets creative with how it uses Eddie and Venom’s “connection” but with such
a tight runtime, there’s never any time to absorb (lol) what happens. Like a
runner doing suicides in an empty stadium. Don’t bother finding your breath now.
We’re not stopping ‘til it’s over.
This movie has been described elsewhere as the ‘Best
superhero movie from 2004’ and maaaaan… The only thing missing is the lingo and
the nu-metal soundtrack. If you listen closely, you may just hear the ghost of
Norman Osbourne wailing about getting you next time. The final battle and
ending sequence are entry-level, back to when we were still figuring out how to
make super-powered people fight on-screen. If you enjoy watching two CG blobs
tumble around in the dark- Damn, that would have been a better movie, too.
I say “too” because there are flashes here and there of what
this movie could have been. Tom Hardy elevates whatever he touches and the best
scenes in this movie are the ones where he is acting alone, simulating the
creeping influence of Venom. He noted in an interview that Sony removed some of
his favorite scenes to shoot, and it shows in little moments like Venom calling
Eddie a “pussy” for refusing to launch himself out of a 50-story spire. Hardy
takes it upon himself to improvise greatly, making Venom the straight man and
Eddie Brock a neurotic goof who’s literally along for the ride. If the movie is
watchable at all, it’s because of his heavy lifting.
I also really like Michelle Williams as Annie. We get a bit
of fanservice as she takes the form of She-Venom near the climax. Outside of
that, I was pleasantly surprised how respectful the movie was to her character.
She didn’t reduce Eddie to an object of resentment and even after saving his
life, she wasn’t falling over herself to get him back. She broke up with him and for now will keep it that way. I
also really like her new boyfriend – a doctor named Dan Lewis (Reid Scott). A nice
guy, who genuinely tries to help Eddie when things take a dark turn for him.
There’s no tension whatsoever between him and Eddie and you would expect that
after this adventure they would be acquaintances at the very least.
Then we have Dr. Skirth who does get the treatment one would expect for a female ancillary
character. She shows up early on as one of three speaking role scientists at
the Life Foundation (lol) and only shows up later to get Eddie into the lab to
contract the Venom. So, in a way, she’s a much better wingman than scientist.
That isn’t even the worst part, though. Thanks in part to Eddie’s dumbassery,
her boss becomes aware that she is responsible for the security breach and
orders her to reveal the intruder’s identity. She does and is immediately
executed via alien parasite.
2008 has ruined movie villains for the rest of time.
Riz Ahmed plays Carlton Drake – a photocopy of a caricature of an SNL Elon Musk
impression. Unlike Steve Lift in Sorry to
Bother You – a man who was clearly a sociopath but clearly affable and
charismatic enough to warrant his swell of corporate support – Carlton Drake is
a charisma vacuum and a total creep on top of that. No one would continue
working for this guy, let alone let him run a space company. Even Elon got
kicked out of his big boss chair in real life. You have to play with the duality
at least a little bit. You can not
say, “You can trust me loyal employee,” and then literally ten seconds later
say, “Please kill my trusted employee.” Sony owes Jenny Slate an apology. I don’t
know how long it took to film her maybe 15 minutes of screen time, but I’m
certain it was too long.
Ready for Ze Tweest now? I didn’t hate this movie.
Like Justice League
it tried really hard to make me
despise it. It was really close. Then
Eddie asks Venom why he decided to stay behind and help. Verbatim, he says: “It
was you, Eddie.” And I threw my hands up, because how could I ever hate a movie
for making that choice?
"I know you want it like I do, EDDIE."
It was the right choice. I just wish I could give it
credit; I can’t, because of the numerous, many times where it made the very
wrong choice. Not one drop of blood in a Venom movie? After Deadpool made a
million-billion dollars? Por? Que?
I would never tell anyone (let alone you, faithful readers)
to spend a dime on this movie. I did, because I see everything, and I knew what
I was walking into. It’s absolutely worth streaming two months from now at
whatever holiday party you like. It’s short, never boring, and super loud –
perfect for a party-type setting. Even if it’s just you and your partner, you’ll
have fun picking apart this movie and lamenting what could have
been.
Venom has already
made oodles of dough despite this. So, when Jared Leto’s Morbius flick comes out and is an absolute poo-poo platter…well,
lol…you can put the blame on me.
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